That lets it top nearly all the games I’ve played. Immediately I’m thinking gameplay, music, and obviously the city itself. And that is what makes the game brilliant. I was pondering it recently, and I came to an incredible realisation. Mirror’s Edge is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever played. Or seen. It’s world is simply so beautiful and believable, it tops any film, game or book universe I can think of.

Of course, that doesn’t make it a brilliant game in itself; it just makes it a brilliant world. It’s too short, the story is weak, the combat appalling, the gameplay frustrating, the weapons unsatisfying and the slow-mo is just wrong. It’s too long, it slows time down too much, making it actually boring, you can’t exit out of it, and there’s no discernible way to regain it except to wait a few minutes.

I was reading from nearly all reviews that the combat is terrible, and it is. You’re forced to study repeated animations, and there’s a nonsensical and pointless way of disarming enemies. The standard melee attacks are ridiculously weak and give you little impression of any physical connection with the person you’re beating. Worst of all, it forces you into this depressing combat, often having enemies guarding the only exit. Tom Francis makes some excellent suggestions that could improve this part of the gameplay here (and indeed some other aspects).

I won’t even get into the story, but its your usual “ZOMG DOUBLE-CROSS” “OH NOES YOU’RE DYING” dirge you’ll find in most games. But Faith is a likeable protaganist, unusally modest and able to say things other than disenchanted sarcasm most protaganist spew out.

But really it’s the world that wins me over. Every time I play, I’m just sucked in. I’m amused when people call Crysis the most beautiful game they’ve ever played. Crysis is just a bunch of trees and some dirt compared to ME. I would put some of my hundreds of screenshots in this post, but unfortunately it won’t let me due to them being .bmp format. Instead, bring your eyes up to the banner.

Awakening surprisingly early this morning, I wandered into my living room and flicked on the TV. It was on Sky News, and I settled down to watch it for a little. Another story on the economy and then it came to Jade Goody. She’s being christened with her children today. So what?

Why should I care about her or her children? I think it’s tragic she has cancer, but what’s with the media craze? She is one person, and there are literally millions of other cancer-sufferers out there dying of exactly the same illness. So why is there a media craze on just one person?

And not even for the right reasons, either. Scoffing at the story, I remembered a conversation with my mother a while back. She said Jade needs the money from the publicity for her children. I said they still have a father, and she pointed out he’s in jail.

Rightly so. He attacked someone 2 years younger than him with a golf club, backed up by a friend. So the Goody family has no money, and Jade is making money for them. But even a small amount, less than a million, would be able to afford them a standard of living comparable to the majority of the English population for several years.

So she’s married to a violent fool, has publicity for no reason, and is now earning money for no reason. She hasn’t donated anything to cancer research, hasn’t asked her fans to do that either. She’s selfish, and has sympathy because she’s dying.

But this highlights the messed up media we have in Britain. Its sensationalist crap. Every day there’s a story like this on the news, every day time is wasted on news channels which could be used for real news, important issues.

Best. Film. Title. Ever. These are my thoughts as I look with joy at the tickets to Lesbian Vampire Killers clutched in my claw-like hands. Full disclosure: I know Matt Horne, so while I may be slightly biased, I did in fact enjoy Lez Vamp Killers. The super-secret-film-biz-people-only screening meant I was sitting amongst some of the most cynical people in the industry, and despite the fact most of them are cold husks of the people they used to be, soulless automatons desperately trying to claw their way into Cannes or Tribeca (the ones doing so bathing in the waters of glory, the others roaming the streets sorrowfully, devoid of a distributor), most of them did in fact laugh out loud (or LOL, as the internet would say) at the jokes in LVK.

The plot is a piss-take on your generic vampire story; vampires have taken over an isolated hamlet, and a descendant of a warrior must slay them to free the yadda yadda yadda. Thankfully Homosexual Blood-seeking-creature Slayers understands that this stuff will instantly bore even the most devoted vampire fanboy, so within the first five minutes we have half-naked lesbians making out, hilarious decapitations and of course the obligatory lesbian sex jokes.

While usually I dislike the generic piss-take film, Female-loving Blood-drinker Hunters manages to pull it off without resorting to the god-awful jokes you’d find in something like Epic Movie. While Corden plays the usual recently-fired-slacker, he does it with such a degree of charisma and acting that my cynical preconceptions evaporated within the first 20 minutes. Horne acts as the foil to Corden; the over-sensitive and polite guy being exploited by his girlfriend. The fact that he acts so meek at the start means his jokes at the end are all the more funnier.

Corden generally overshadows Horne comic-wise but in acting ability they’re about equal, and work well as a duo. The other actors, specifically MyAnna Buring and Paul McGann are competent, but never equal the main duo.

Not to say the entire film was great; it clearly is very, very low-budget. The scene in which Horne gets dumped appears to be have filmed in an empty wooden shed, the main cottage where they stay looks like its made out of cardboard, and all the forest sets look the same.

However, this is only noticeable when you look closely at the film. The direction pretty much covers it up well, with shots mainly being on the actors, and there are few static shots that are long enough to let one truly see the sets.

What the direction couldn’t cover up, however, is the awful special effects. Still, if you’re coming to a film called Lesbian Vampire Killers expecting something with the special effects of The Dark Knight, you should probably take a reality check.

No, these flaws are all acceptable, but the main problem is more evident; the script. It was perhaps a little under-developed. After the fourth scene of the two running through a forest being chased by (admittedly sexeh) vampires, I was starting to get a little bored. For me the first half was the best, where we still had the amusing dysfunctional relationship between Horne and his girlfriend, as well as the hilarious group of pretty-but-dumb art students. If they had perhaps fleshed the script out, and had the characters being picked off with more than just a few scenes in between, I would have been on the edge of my seat throughout, as it is I was entertained, but the ending just didn’t live up to the beginning.

In short, see it with friends, and don’t take it too seriously. As a light-hearted comedy, it’s great.

Disappointing. Slumdog Millionaire swept the board, nabbing several BAFTAs, including editing, which is extremely annoying, because I wanted Lee Smith of Batman to get it. In Bruges received only 1 award, and Rourke nabbed Best Actor. Still, there’s the videogame BAFTAs in March to look forward to.